Death of the tri-land raider Dark Angel list, and other FAQ updates...

No meaningful updates to the Chaos Daemons codex in 2 months...  Argh, the pain of it all!

Here are a few things that did get an FAQ:

• Instant Death does not remove 2 bases on Swarms.  This has been debated on the Interwebz for years; now we have an answer.
• The DA Power Field Generator does not apply to vehicles when the unit is embarked.  No more tri-land raider shenanigans.
• Gunslinger does not allow for multi-witchfire hotness.  Can't say I'm suprised here.
• Yes, templates can deviate out of LOS and still kill things (thank you very much).
• Abaddon can not be spawned or turned into a Daemon prince through Dark Apotheosis.  Way to write in a whole new rule into the codex.  Hello, Bueller?  Where are the C:CD FAQs?
• C:DA - the SoD applies to Boltguns, TL Boltguns, Combi-boltguns and Hurricane bolters.

You can find all the deets here:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat440134a&categoryId=1000018&section=&pIndex=1&aId=3000006&start=2&multiPageMode=true

Recent 11th Company Interview Reflection (Part 1)

I recently was interviewed by Pat of 11th Company fame.  Pat also being a long time Daemon player made for a great conversation.  I really like listening to these guys, so you should check them out if you have a little commute or painting time to spare.  You can listen to Episode 156 here.  My interview is about an hour and a half in.

So, I listened to my interview and want to post some reflections about my early thoughts on the Chaos Daemon codex based upon my showing at the March Contest of Champions.  I went 0-3 in all close games, but never the less took a beating that day.  I'm used to 2-1 or 3-0 results so I had to man up and be a gracious looser.

At 1500 points a took an All-Tzeentch list to see if I could make a proper go at it with the new codex.  My list looked something like this (I don't have the actual points load out with me):

- Fateweaver
- 2 Heralds of Tzeentch w/ Locus of Conjuration (one ML2 and one ML1) and Exhaulted gifts

- 16 Pink Horrors with Blasted Standard
- 12 Pink Horrors (naked)

- 3 Flamers (pyrocaster upgrade on 1)
- 4 Flamers (naked)
- 4 Flamers (naked)

- 6 Screamers

- Tzeentch Soul Grinder w/ pleghm

- Aegis Defense Line w/ quad gun

Losers
Fateweaver - which is too bad because I just bought a Fine Cast model of this guy after using a LoC forever in this spot.  His re-roll on the warp storm table and single die re-roll is not worth 300 points.  He is less durable than previously and once he's locked in combat any real value he had diminished greatly.  Had I taken a DP or LoC I would have fared better.

Pink Horrors - I previously wrote about how the shooting on these guys isn't that bad.  It isn't - BUT deny the witch is THAT good, and losing overwatch is a big deal.  I used to take 20 horrors and my opponents would have to really debate the assault before committing.  Now, there is no reason not to assault this unit.  This cost me one of the games.

Tzeentch - I'm still waiting on a GW FAQ to correct what I believe was a mistake on the Buring Chariots (not being able to move and shoot).  Psychic shooting is rough, Eldar, Space Wolves and Tyranids are going to relegate my Tzeentch Daemons to casual play unless I ally in Slaanesh, Khorne or C:CSM.  I'm simmering this decision as I write.

Meh
Soul Grinder - Even AV 13 only requires a single penetration to toast near 200 points.  This is the problem with vehicles in general.  No complaints, but he got popped on turn 1 in my first game.

Winners
Deployment - Being able to deploy models lulls my opponents into a false sense of security.  I wasn't too sure about this, but when used properly this can be every bit as flexible as the old Daemonic Assault rules.

Tzeentch Heralds - Yes, prescience is that good, presuming you can hex your opponents DtW die. The Locus of Conjuration is great also, psychic shooting is just way too random...

Helldrake does as Helldrake pleases

Q:  Can Heldrake really do as Heldrake pleases?  
A:  Yes, Heldrake is now an Assault Vehicle.

"The Legions of the Chaos Space Marines have learned to climb onto the back of the Heldrake and ride it into battle. They launch assaults by swooping up high and then leaping down off the back of the Heldrake... DEATH (the the false emperor) FROM ABOVE!!!!!

Models "on board" a Heldrake can launch an assault after disembarking from a Heldrake. Measure from the Heldrakes base (naturally) in any direction (of course), however add 5d6 to their assault range to represent the boost they get from diving off a super-sonic Heldrake's back. Furthermore, models on board can draw LoS from any point on the board to launch their assault.

Also, all models launching an assault will ignore cover saves, gain the Crusader special rule, have Missile Lock (to be redacted later), have Preferred Enemy (Tau), and naturally, gain Furious Charge.  Models equipped with Plasma Pistols gain the Salvo 4/8 rule.

Finally, the Heldrake himself can participate in the assault to support his passengers. The Heldrake fights in combat as a Walker. However, at the end of a round of combat, the Heldrake is not locked and instead returns to a Swooping/Gliding (player's choice) state in the same position he was in. The Heldrake does not need to pile-in nor make a charge move nor has to be anywhere near the actual combat to participate. 

Furthermore, in subsequent turns, the Heldrake can continue to fight in any combat he was in that is still ongoing no matter where he is at on the board. 

Lastly, the Heldrake now has the Skilled Rider special rule and can be mounted on a Palanquin for 35 points."

-Neil Gilstrap, host 11th Company
Neil's original blog post can be found here.  I stole the whole thing in its entirety, QFT.

11th Company

I'm a fan of the 11th Company, a long running (maybe longest running) Warhammer 40K podcast.  Neil, Pat and the rest of the crew are fun guys to listen to.  Neil is the tactical genius and Pat is the face man.  By that I mean that Neil is a bigger blowhard than I am on most subjects while offering great insight into the tactical value of units and their codices while Pat arranges great interviews with interesting and exciting guests.  See what I did there?  You will...

Sportsmanship - Soft Score or Necessary Evil?

Personally, I think these 3 questions pretty much sum of the issue of sportsmanship, soft score or necessary evil?

1. What is the genesis of the sportsmanship score at 40K tournaments?
2. What does one hope to accomplish by scoring sportsmanship?
3. If you score sportsmanship how do you ensure your players all follow the same guidelines?

Questions about the new codex for a GW FAQ

Dakka is compiling a good thread on all of the questions that are being asked on the interwebs.  Here or some of my favorites.  I also go on record on how I think they should be ruled and how I think GW will rule.

I'll keep updating this thread for a few days with my thoughts.  As someone reminded me, we should have an FAQ within 9 days.  Everyone knows Tzeentch's number is best and since Phil and I share the same first initial and last name we must have some connection.  So, on the 9th day (which will be this coming Sunday) give or take a day we'll have a C:CD FAQ.  Anyone want to wager on the over/under?

First thoughts with the new Daemons

After spending last week reading both German copies and photos of the real thing, followed by actually getting my iPad copy Friday night and then playing the old codex on Saturday I got to give the codex a whirl today.  First thoughts:

• Damn, that's a lot of psykers.  I have to learn a new phase of the game.
• What, no...  You can't double me out I have Eternal wa....  Oh, crap, you're right.
• Oh yeah, I forgot to roll on the Warp Storm table, hang on a second.
• I need more and multiple colors of tokens to mark war charges, warp flames and soul blaze.
• There aren't enough psychic cards in the deck for me to use that much divination.
• I need cards for the Daemonic Rewards so that I can put them next to the models.
• Discs are jet bikes?  Let's see what I can do with screamers.
• Wow, 30 minutes of set-up and rolling dice and we're now just starting the game...

Final Game Thoughts

Necrons and Daemons are ever so slightly less cheesy.

Yesterday was the final outing for my old daemons.  I say final because I don't think I'll be playing in any tournaments in the next 28 days or so, and I think that the local tournament scene generally has a 30 day window on codex releases.  Anyway, my friend Andy and I teamed up for a local team tournament at Olde World Gaming in Elk Grove, CA.  Andy plays Necrons and Dark Angels, and neither very often.  We went into the day with the thought of finishing in the mid/upper tier but I wasn't expecting 3 wins.

The first game was against a newer player, and while he put up a good showing it wasn't really a fair match.  He was the ringer playing a single 2k point list against our Necron/Daemon list.

The second game was against a local favorite and his brother.  It was Space Marine bikes and Tau against us in Vanguard.  This was a much harder fought win, but still a win.  There are games like that one where everything goes my way and I see that my flamers are just awesome.

The last game was a knock down drag out "mirror" match where we fought Necrons and Tyranids.  It was Dawn of War and every turn ebbed and flowed.  At any given point the game could have gone either way.  We ended up pulling out a narrow victory, unlike the first two games.  The win earned me a Burning Chariot model, which presents its own set of issues (embarked passenger firing heavy weaponry, d'oh!).

So, when I look back at my experience this last year with my daemons I see a mixed bag.  I did well with them in 5th edition, but not awesome.  That said, I only started playing 40k again a little over 2 years ago, so I consider myself still learning.  The changes to the flamers and screamers made my army better, no doubt, but did it make me a winner?  I can't say for sure, but it didn't hurt my odds.

Changes that would have lessened the sting from the nerf bat

I'm going to focus on Tzeentch and things that would have lessened the sting of the change IMHO.

• Give all units that start on the board scout.  Seriously, we're daemons that errupt from the warp.  Placement should be scary for the opponent.  This compromises between normal deployment and complete deepstrike.  Most units would get a 6" move.
• Allow Ld tests for pshycic powers to be taken on the modified Ld even if it takes it higher than 10.  Fateweaver is the boss.  He lost his reroll bubble, don't make him fail psychic tests 3/36 times.  He should auto pass, but still take perils.
• -1 to opponents DTW.  Seriously, the average marine unit should not get a 1/6 chance to shut down psychic shooting from a daemon (made of the warp).
• Daemons should be able to manifest witchfire for overwatch.

I can pretty much live with everything else.  Yeah, there is stuff I don't like, but these few changes would make the stuff that isn't supposed to be wonky and unreliable a little more paletable.

What do you think?

Pink Horrors Point Efficiency (part 2)

In the early day of 6th edition screamers and flamers were the damage dealers in an all Tzeentch army, but you were forced to take Pink Horrors to round out the army and score objectives.  Most daemon players would take other troops choices, but I remained true to my devotion to the changing tides of the aether.  I liked taking them in squads of 10-20 to keep them alive and deal some damage. I routinely ran a large blob squad of 19 horrors and the Changeling plus a Herald.  This was a mixed bag.

Pros:
Survivable 4++ save (rerolled near Fateweaver)
Massed fire (60+ shots at 18")
Great overwatch potential (often poor actual results)

Cons:
Large deepstrike footprint
360-455 points that can mishap
Low BS shooting

Breaking the compact with the gamer

Games Workshop has gone and done it again.  No, not raising their prices, but I'm sure we're in for that again soon (insert sarcasm here).  This time I propose that they have done the unforgiveable.  GW has broken the sacred compact with the gamer, they have changed rules explicitely to make sales.

What's that you say?  Everyone does this?  Well, I will agree that this is not uncommon when versions of a game are released, but there is an unspoken agreement between the gamer and GW that a new codex or new edition with shake thing sup and then you (the gamer) can expect a slow decline in the ability of your highly priced models over the course of a few years before they become good again.

A few months back GW released new Flamer and Screamer models in plastic and a White Dwarf rules update.  What is truly amazing is that from reading the updates and the new codex at the same time you can tell that GW already had the codex done.  The WD update made flamers and screamers too good to pass up (thus selling losts of models) and then turned around a few months later once the models were sold and reduced their ability by an order of magnitude (100% worse or more).

I'm not upset that the new rules are underpowered.  I think they're a little more realistic now, but I am upset that we see such a blatant change of rules once they made their sales (and in such a short order).

Limited Edition Tzeentch Codex in the mail

Who buys this crap anyway?  I guess I'm a sucker.

It's in the mail according to an email I just got.

Flamers no longer OP

Flamer's of Tzeentch - painted by me

Late last year I said Flamers were not OP here.  The world, and Phil Kelly disagreed.

Pink Horrors Point Efficiency (part 1)

While screamers and flamers are the damage dealer in an all Tzeentch army, you have to take Pink Horrors to round out the army.  I like taking them in squads of 10-20 to keep them alive and deal some damage.  I routinely run squads of 20 horrors, which is a mixed bag.

Pros:
Survivable
Massed fire (60 shots at 18")

Cons:
Large deepstrike footprint
360 points that can mishap

More rules???

You can find the german translated rules on 4chan... or Warseer, or even Dakka at this point.  I am now in possession of "most" of the codex. I'll be happy to answer questions, if they were not addressed in the translation or if the translation is wrong.  If they were already addressed I will not answer the question.

Warp Storm Table Odds

I figured I'd take a look at the potential for each result on the Warpstorm table to occur.  The percentage chance of a result occuring at least once doesn't change with more rounds.  I started down that path initially but had to remind myself of come basic college math.  Now, the odds of a result occuring a specific number of times (greater than once) during a game of varying length does change.  I'll leave that for another day.

2.78% - All units take a Daemonic Instability test
5.56% - One daemon Character tests on Leadership with 3D6 and takes wounds like Daemonic Instability
8.33% - All daemons -1 invulnerable save
11.11% - Roll D6 for all enemies and nurgle units, on a 6 hit by a 5" template S4, AP5 barrage
13.89% - Roll D6 for all enemies and tzeentch units, on 6 D6 hits with S4 Ap3, poison, ignore cover
16.67% - Nothing
13.89% - Roll d6 for all enemies and khorne units, on 6 D6 hits with S6, Ap-, ignore cover, rending
11.11% - Roll d6 for all enemies and slaanesh units on 6 hit by a 3" template S8, ap3
8.33% - +1 invulnerable save for daemons
5.56% - one enemy psyker test on Leadership with 3D6, if failed he explodes and you get a new herald in his place (Perils of Warp, we are here!!!)
2.78% - a new troop unit of your choice (bloodletter, plaguebearer, horror, daemonette) is summoned, 2D6+3 models

So in any game, the odds of getting a 2 or 12 at least once is less than 3% each.  While this will happen, it will be rare.

Now, assuming that your enemy has at least 6 units on the board (on average throughout a game - for giggles) you'll have an 8.33% chance that an enemy unit will take a hit at least once during a game.  Granted it will be a random unit and a random hit type from the 4 types above, but that's still something.

Warp Storm Table

The winds of chaos blow madly in the 41st millenium.  During the course of a game of 40K involving Chaos Daemons each turn will find units affected by the Warp.  Here are the results (rolled on 2D6):

2 - All units take a Daemonic Instability test
3 - One daemon Character tests on Leadership with 3D6 and takes wounds like Daemonic Instability
4 - All daemons -1 invulnerable save
5 - Roll D6 for all enemies and nurgle units, on a 6 hit by a 5" template S4, AP5 barrage
6 - Roll D6 for all enemies and tzeentch units, on 6 D6 hits with S4 Ap3, poison, ignore cover
7 - Nothing
8 - Roll d6 for all enemies and khorne units, on 6 D6 hits with S6, Ap-, ignore cover, rending
9 - Roll d6 for all enemies and slaanesh units on 6 hit by a 3" template S8, ap3
10 - +1 invulnerable save for daemons
11 - one enemy psyker test on Leadership with 3D6, if failed he explodes and you get a new herald in his place (Perils of Warp, we are here!!!)
12 - a new troop unit of your choice (bloodletter, plaguebearer, horror, daemonette) is summoned, 2D6+3 models

Final thoughts on the current Chaos Daemons Codex

 
The tail end of 5th Edition and all of 6th Edition has been good for my Tzeentchy Chaos Daemons.  I've enjoyed the book for what it is - not like anything else.  My only real hope for the new book is that it continues to be very different from everything else.  Aside from that I'd love to see some real synergy between Daemons and Chaos Marines.  I'm still bummed that we didn't get DA Fallen and we don't currently get Traitor Guard in 6E; hopefully in the next edition of the book in a few years.

In my opinion the upcoming CD codex will be a success if (in no particular order):

• You can take viable mono-God builds for all 4 Gods and get rewarded for playing a fluffy army.
• If there is still a major random component to the army, but one that doesn't auto win or auto-lose.
• I'd like to see Tzeentch stay super shooty.
• It would be nice to see Nurgle and Slaanesh get a little shooty in their characters, etc.
• I'd like to see Khorne shut down psykers.  Something like Eldrad's powers wouldn't be OP IMHO or DTW on a 2+ (as an upgrade would be fine).
• Here's wishing, but let me mark EVERYTHING in the book that isn't marked (Soul Grinders, etc.)
• Daemonic Assault - or something like it that makes me play the game in a totally different way than everyone else.  Come on, we're fans of Chaos, don't make us play by the same rules!!!

Bad moon face returns!

Courtesy of Dice and Brush I have another picture this morning:

I have to say that the bad moon head on the herald is a great throw back and one that I can't wait to use.  Also, the fact that the Tzeentch chariot kit allows you to build a herald too is a great bonus.  I'm not in love with my finecast Herald on disc.

Limited Edition Chaos Codexes/Army Books

GW is releasing limited edition Chaos Codexes and Army Books this weekend for presale.  They will be $90 each USD and there will be 4 of each available, one dedicated to each of the Chaos Gods.  Sounds cool if you have the money and a strong preference for a particular Chaos God.

However, an email from GW to resellers says, "will go up for pre-order on the Games Workshop website this weekend.  because of the extremely limited nature of these itms we are expecting them to sell out this weekend.  Please do not take preorders or prepayments for these products, [customers] best chance to secure one of these items is to visit the website and purchase it themselves."